


Foolish Endeavors

by TooManyBooksToRead



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Non-Graphic Violence, Roy needs a drink, Time Loop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-18
Updated: 2020-02-18
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:42:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22789696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TooManyBooksToRead/pseuds/TooManyBooksToRead
Summary: Maes Hughes died in a phone booth outside of Central Command. And then he did it again, and again, and again.
Relationships: Maes Hughes & Roy Mustang
Comments: 21
Kudos: 60
Collections: Time Loop Hell (Feb 2020)





	Foolish Endeavors

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Time Loop from Hell prompt for the snipers discord. Alternatively titled Roy deserved a break so that's why I'm not giving it to him.

“You humans really are such fools. You risk your lives over the most pointless things.”

~~~

The day of the funeral passes in a dizzying mix between moments of painful blurriness and blinding clarity. The shapes and colors of the train indistinct but Elicia’s desperate cries ringing clear in his ears hours after the service is done, it all blends together into a horrifying nightmare of a day where nothing is as it should be. 

He bitterly thinks that that’s the way it should be, after all, what world would just let Maes Hughes die – what world would take Maes when his own toll was so much higher, what world would ever be right when Maes was gone. 

Dead, dead, dead, he kept repeating the word in his head like a chant. Maybe if he kept going until the words held no meaning he could delude himself into thinking it wasn’t real.

But it was, and that meant there was someone out there who killed Maes – but wasn’t it his fault? hadn’t he failed Maes? – and that meant someone had to pay.

It hadn’t surprised him that he’d crashed as soon as he had any time to actually rest, the day had been hectic even before his eventful meeting with Major Armstrong but it was nothing he couldn’t push through. He wouldn’t have much time to rest while he was investigating the senior staff in Central so he may as well get some while he could.

He lay on the white hotel bed – he couldn’t bear Gracia’s kindness, not when he knew that with them there she wouldn’t let herself grieve – looking at the ceiling and he evened his breathing, it wouldn’t do to waste time crying when he had so much to do. He focused on drawing slow even breaths and though he looked at the ceiling he fell asleep seeing a blinding smile in the scorching desert.

The next morning came much too soon, his head still foggy from the disconcerting contrasts of the day before, but there was no time to dwell on yesterday. If he wanted everything to go smoothly for his transfer to central he’d need to get back to East City today.

He stood up intending to make his way to the bathroom – a shower was bound to do wonders for his awareness – when he crashed into a wall that shouldn't have been there. Instead of the bathroom door, he found the wall, a wall with a very familiar worn pattern. But he’d stayed in a hotel last night, hadn’t he?

He shook his head and redirected so he could get to the bathroom in his tiny apartment, he must’ve been more out of it than he’d thought yesterday if he’d forgotten taking the overnight train. That wouldn’t do, carelessness like that would get him – or worse one of his – killed when they were in the snake’s nest.

A shower. A cold shower was what he needed right now. He’d clear his head and get to East HQ and then he could organize his team for the transfer. And so that’s what he did, he went to work and did his best to get everything in order to smooth the transfer over as fast as he could and was infinitely grateful everyone knew better than to pin him with pitiful gazes. He kept moving forward just like he always did.

He was staying late again going over paperwork he could swear he’d read before when the phone rang.

“Call from Lt. Colonel Hughes in Central, on a public line.”

His breath hitched, “What is this?” he asked trying to keep his voice from cracking, “Is this some kind of joke?”

“He properly identified himself as Lt. Colonel Hughes sir,” the operator said clearly taken aback by his reaction, “Should I not put him through?” she finished hesitantly.

“No. Put them through I want to know what the hell this sick bastard thinks they’re doing,” He said harshly.

There was a small click as the operator put the public line through and then nothing. The other end of the line was silent if he strained he could catch the faint sounds of breathing.

“Who are you and what do you want.” He demanded.

Only silence answered him, it stretched on uncomfortably long. Roy fumed he did not have the patience for this, whoever was on the other end of that line was going to pay.

“I said who are yo–” he was abruptly cut off by the line going dead.

He didn’t need this, he slammed the phone back on the receiver and grabbed his coat. The paperwork would still be on his desk tomorrow, right now he needed to go home and sleep before he decided to engage in some recreational destruction of government property.

Maes Hughes was dead. No stupid phonecalls or haphazard arrays running through his mind would ever change that.

~~~

“You humans are so foolish, risking your lives over such pointless things.” 

~~~

The next morning passed in a haze, overshadowed by the lingering echoes of the nightmares that had chased him to sleep, Riza had spent the whole morning trying to snap him out of it but the words on the paper were swimming in his vision, it didn’t help that whenever he could read the paperwork it felt like he’d already gone through each new document at least once already. 

The overwhelming sense of Deja Vu coupled with the lack of news about his transfer to central was making him twitchy, he couldn’t bear all this inaction much longer. Not when the person who killed Hughes was still out there.

One by one the people in his team started filtering out of the office until he was again the only one left, which while not unheard of was unusual. Most of the time he stayed late Riza found an excuse to stick around, something about not wanting him to be alone with his thoughts for longer than he should be.

He was so engrossed going over some reports he swore he’d already checked that he almost missed the ring of the phone.

Startled he picked up, doing his best to keep his cool.

“Put them through, I don’t care who they are just put them through,” he snapped before the operator could even tell him who was on the line. He was tired and frustrated and if this was another sick joke like the one from yesterday he just wanted to get it over with.

He expected the faint click of the line connecting to be followed by silence just like it had been the night before instead, he managed to catch the last hints of a scream followed by a gunshot.

The sound was clear even though it was hundreds of miles away, the loud bang of the gun was followed by the ominous click of whoever remained on the other end of the line hanging up.

Roy wasted no time, he grabbed his coat and stormed downstairs for the operator’s rooms.

He slammed the door open and headed for the poor woman manning the lines, “I need a direct line to Central Command immediately,” he ordered heading for one of the phones and dialing, “who was on the line that connected to my office?” he demanded.

“The caller identified himself as Lt. Colonel Huges, he was contacting you from an outside line in Central, Sir.”

Roy dropped the phone in his hands. His world was shifting in and out of focus, it felt like it was pouring, heavy suffocating drops of water falling from the sky and pinning him to the spot.

He didn’t feel himself fall to the floor or hear the woman operating the telephones panic as his head cracked against the floor, too lost in his own world to realize it happened.

When he opened his eyes again he was back in his bed, back in his shitty old apartment that he probably should’ve cleaned weeks ago.

He almost managed to convince himself it’d been a nightmare on his way to work. Almost.

But then he started paying attention. And now that he was paying attention he started noticing, things, like how Havoc was still talking about that girl – Sarah? – when he was sure they’d broken up before the funeral, or how all the paperwork he’d stayed up late to complete was right there on his desk again, or how no one’s plans for the week had even changed from yesterday.

When was the last time he bothered to check a calendar anyway? 

He didn’t stay late at the office this time. Instead, he went into the city where the newspapers only told him exactly what he already knew. What he hadn’t wanted to believe.

He looked up into the dark sky holding back a sob.

Dark. The sky was dark. Hughes.

He ran desperately hoping it wasn’t as late as he knew it was. Hoping against everything that maybe he wouldn’t be too late.

He rushed to the nearest phonebooth and fumbled his way through dialing a number he knew by heart. The phone rang once, twice, he was about to hand up and try the office when the call was picked up.

“Hughes residence, Gracia speaking,” Gracia’s tone was lighter than he remembered hearing but that did nothing to ease his worry.

“Gracia, hello. This is Mustang speaking, it’s kind of urgent.” there was a weight settling on the pit of his stomach he already knew, but he couldn’t just let himself believe, he couldn’t.

“Of course, what do you need?” she asked worry already lacing itself into her tone.

“Is – Is Maes home right now?” he stuttered too afraid of the answer to even ask the question properly.

Gracia sighed on the other end of the line, “No. He’s staying late today, he said he was helping the Elrics with some research.”

A desperate strangled sound escaped his throat before he could stop it.

“Is everything alright?” she asked, definitely concerned now.

Roy couldn’t breathe, there wasn’t enough air inside the small telephone booth.

“Everything is alright Gracia,” he struggled to say it in a way that would make her believe him, “I’m just feeling a little paranoid is all.” He finished trying to get air back in his lungs, doing his best to dispel the worry he’d caused her.

“Alright then,” she said in the tone he knew meant she would be talking with Maes about it – would’ve talked to him about it, “Do remember to visit someday you’re always welcome here and Elicia has started asking where Uncle Roy disappeared to.” 

He could picture the smile on her face, she was offering him a place at her dinner table, opening the doors to her home and here he was, keeping the fact that her husband was dying from her.

“I’ll drop by as soon as I’m transferred to Central,” he said instead. 

He was a coward, he knew that much but at least this way he could spare her for a few hours.

As soon as Gracia hung up he dialed the Intel Office number. But there was no hope there this time, the tone echoing in the booth only pushed the final nail in the coffin.

Maes Hughes was dead. And he could’ve done something.

~~~

The tone resonated in the quiet night. No one was there to receive his call.

“You risk your lives over such pointless things. Foolish humans.”

~~~

Roy didn’t want to stand up the next day.

Four times. 

He’d killed Maes four times.

Four different times he’d let his best friend be killed. He hadn’t even noticed the second and third.

He didn’t deserve to live.

But Maes did, Maes whose days were numbered, Maes who he could – no he would save.

There was no time to waste, he put on the first change of clothing he found on his way and snatched his watch on the way out.

A cursory glance told him he’d missed his window for the early morning train to Central, the noon train would have to do. It would have to.

There were approximately 12 hours until Maes Hughes would be shot at a phone booth in Central. The noon train left in an hour. He was gonna do this.

The walk to the station was too short, the hands of the clock moving tortuously slow as he shoved his way to the front of the ticket booth.

“A ticket for the next train to Central,” he flashed his watch, making sure the crest was on full display, “Government business.”

He spent the next forty minutes pacing the platform and going over everything he knew in his mind.

Maes Hughes would be killed in a phonebooth nearby Central Command at around 2100 hours, the killing wound was a single shot to the upper torso but he already had prominent bleeding from puncture or stab wounds on his shoulder. He would arrive in Central circa 1900 hours, he had no backup and no ignition gloves. 

There were presumably several unknown perpetrators and at least several senior staff members involved in the murder and coverup. He could use something sharp to carve the array into his hands, ask the conductor for some flint and steel before getting off.

He could take anyone that got in his way except arguably the Fuher but Bradley’s blades meant nothing if he was carbonized before he put them to use.

The nine-hour train ride was stifling and so agonizingly slow. He could pick out every single tree and country house they passed, as the clock's gears turned, slowly making their constant ticking resonate in the silent cabin.

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. The clock went, too slow in the stillness of the empty space.

He was twitchy, he kept rubbing his fingers together finding himself ready to snap at the slightest disturbance. 

He held off on carving the array until they were closer.

Finally, finally. They pulled up to the station in Central, he rushed out of the train leaving fresh trails of blood on the upholstery and clutching a lighter like a lifeline.

There was no time to waste.

He thought about getting to Central Command, stopping Maes from doing whatever research had gotten him on the chopping block in the first place. But security would give him hell. It didn’t matter anyway, it was already too late for him to still be there, even if he was staying past his usual hours.

He’d head for the phonebooth instead, he thought resolutely.

He had the element of surprise, he’d be able to get whoever shot Maes before they did it. He would.

A glance at the sky told him he was running out of time, he sped up running through the nearly empty streets in the direction of the scene of the crime – the crime that wouldn’t be. 

His head was pounding, fasterfasterfasterfaster he kept pushing as far as he could.

He rounded the corner in time to see the red lights, lights that looked suspiciously like the discharge transmutation arrays generated.

And suddenly he was in front of the phonebooth. And he stopped short.

Maes was inside giving his back to the person holding the gun that would kill him. Giving his back to Gracia holding the gun that would kill him.

Roy hesitated for a single second, he weighed his options. 

Maes was first. Maes was always first.

He sealed his decision with a snap, and then where Gracia had been there was a great wall of burning scorching fire.

He locked eyes with Maes who managed to look horrified and at the same time confused and then his attention was rudely diverted by the pain in his side.

He looked down, that was definitely a bullet.

There was a second bang.

He forced himself to focus through the pain, there was someone stalking from the phonebooth. The phonebooth where Maes was now slumped on the ground and bleeding out.

He didn’t hear what the person next to him was saying, he could only feel the grief – Maes cold and dead again – and the pain consuming him.

If they were going to go out they may as well give whoever killed him hell.

A wall of fire burst next to him. The screams of his attacker resounding in the quiet night.

He really was good at making burnt corpses.

~~~

“Foolish humans risk their lives for such pointless things.”

~~~

He almost dared to hope he wouldn’t wake up but that wasn’t what he should be doing. He had someone to save.

It was still early enough to catch the morning train if he hurried, he ran through his apartment making sure to grab a pair of ignition gloves and a lighter. 

The trip there was just as nervewracking, but he knew what would happen, he had more time. Maybe he could even make it to Central and convince Maes to not stick his nose somewhere that would get him killed.

He left the station in a hurry sparing no thoughts for his next move. He’d already had six tortuous hours to think.

So he rushed towards Central command. Five hours. He had five hours to save Maes. He would not fail again.

It was easy enough to track Maes down and he must’ve certainly looked like something for everyone to give him a wide berth as he made his way to the Intel Office.

He slammed the door open and there he was. Maes, Maes impossibly alive and well and looking at him like he was crazy.

He almost slumped over in relief.

“Roy! I wasn’t expecting to see you in Central.” He was smiling and it was just a bit tense – Roy didn’t like to visit without warning him after all. “Did you finally cave and come to have dinner with us? You just missed Elicia’s birthday but she loves having you around.”

Roy was too stunned to protest like he usually would have when Maes grabbed him by the shoulders and started steering all the way out of Central Command, instead he leaned into his touch as much as he could without leaving Maes to carry his whole weight – because Maes was alive and solid and here and alive – all the way to the same phonebooth it all kept apparently coming back to.

He looked up at Maes, he looked worried. And he almost laughed of course he was, Maes was supposed to die today – not on his watch, not while he could do anything to stop it – but he was still worried bout his sorry ass.

And then Maes did that thing where he knew Roy was thinking like that and sat them down at a nearby park bench, “Roy as much as I do love the spontaneous urge to visit I need you to tell me why you burst into my office looking like you’d just seen a ghost.”

Roy took a deep steadying breath before he looked back at Maes. He could see the worry in his eyes and his posture, the way the bench they’d sat at was private enough for a serious conversation but out in the open so no one could say they were trying to hide anything, the way Maes sat so he could cover the sun so it wouldn’t get in Roy’s eyes.

With his back to the setting afternoon sun, Maes glowed like an angel.

Roy’s breath hitched, once, and then twice and then he was sobbing. He was subbing in Maes’ arms and he couldn’t stop, he couldn’t, he couldn’t. Why couldn’t he pull himself together and stop crying?

Maes holds him, and he doesn’t let go of him as he leads him back to his apartment or as they fall asleep leaning on each other like they used to do in the Academy.

He falls asleep to the steady beat of Maes’ heartbeat and when he opens his eyes back in his apartment in East City he pretends he hasn’t lost a piece of his own heart.

~~~

The pieces start falling together sometimes after the 20th loop.

He trades for the information in blood, a stab wound for a marked map, Maes on the phonebooth for the shapeshifter, Edward’s screams for the number of snaps it takes to kill one of the killers.

It does nothing. 

He wakes up every time with eleven hours on the clock – ticking down, down, down to zero.

~~~

Riza follows him to Central.

He adds her to the body count.

~~~

By 200 he has his morning down to a science. He grabs his watch, a pair of ignition gloves and a lighter. He slides a switchblade into his pocket as he leaves without bothering to lock the door.

He grabs the first train to Central and uses the ride to play out different possibilities and carve arrays in his hands and up his arms. It doesn’t matter anyway not if he can’t make it again.

This time he makes it to the archive room before Maes. He shoves him hard, flinching at the sound of his head cracking against the bookcases.

The door slides open and the woman slips through.

Seven snaps to kill her but the room is flammable and Maes is still there. Unconscious and helpless.

He walks out of the mess that the newly restored archives are and gets a clear loom at her before the air around her ignites. Dark hair, pale skin, Ouroboros tattoo.

She stabs him through the shoulder before he’s out the door.

She doesn’t follow him. She doesn’t fucking follow him. And then the shapeshifter is there, this time with the face of Riza – he’s lost count of how many times it had tried this already. 

A bullet to the kneecap tells him they want him alive. 

He learns that it’ll take more snaps to kill the shapeshifter than it would take to kill the woman.

~~~

He calls Gracia before he leaves this time, tells her to get on the train and drag Maes and Elicia with her.

Neither the woman nor the shapeshifter shows up to the archive rooms and Roy cries until Sheska finds him crumpled in the archive rooms.

~~~

“Foolish human, thought he could outsmart us. They die over such trivial things.”

~~~ 

Anytime he believes he’s managed to pin down the sequence of events – to make a plan that’ll work this time another variable gets thrown into the mix. The Elrics take the evening train (one kidnapped and another in a coma), Madame decides to call that morning (Vanessa and Renesmee torn to pieces in the square), Riza calls the Hughes residence (Elicia and Gracia bleeding out on the front door), Havoc paralyzed and always, always, always Maes lying cold on the ground.

Well not always. He holds those few miraculous occasions close to his heart feeding the spark of hope nestled there.

That night they fall asleep in Maes’ couch, the time they all make it to the sewers, the time Maes insists on escorting the Elrics to Dublith – somewhere in the back of his mind these same instances make his stomach churn why didn’t it stick, why didn’t it stick, why didn’t it stick.

He loses count somewhere around number 450.

~~~

After that, it keeps spiraling out of control.

A fire set to the apartment building, a syringe next to Maes’ bloodless corpse, the shapeshifter’s laughter echoing into the night as it pins him to the ground wearing Maes’ face while the corpse cools next to him.

“You know more than you should, Flame,” it told him once a few hundred loops in, “I don’t like it but it’s certainly entertaining to watch you struggle. Such a pointless death your friend died, who knows maybe you won’t be as foolish as this one.”

He relishes the punch even if it doesn’t make the shapeshifter flinch. The smirk earns him a knife to the gut and a newfound resolve.

~~~

He gets a stab in the gut this time. He was careless. 

The woman turns to ashes as his vision goes blurry.

But the loops seem to be stabilizing again, less moving parts. More predictable movements.

He’s got a good feeling about the next one.

~~~

He wakes up in his apartment.

Grabbing his gloves, a knife and a lighter is routine now. 

Going to East HQ is not. But he’s getting stuck with all the moving parts of Central, he thinks guiltily that he needs to take a step back and look at it all from outside. He needs to know how much has gone back to how it was in the beginning and how much has changed.

He’s been gone from HQ so long – how long has it been. Months? Years? – that he almost forgets how to step back into the familiar patterns of the office.

His team notices, of course, they do. But they thankfully don’t comment on it.

The day goes by uneventfully until the faithful call.

He picks up to silence on the other end.

He can picture Maes slumped over and bleeding out trying to reach the receiver. To tell him what has been happening in this country.

Roy will worry about the transmutation circle later. For now, he has a long night ahead of him, there’s an assassination to stop.

~~~

“You humans really are such fools. You risk your lives over the most pointless things.”

Envy walks away from the cooling body of Maes Hughes.


End file.
